In recent years, light-emitting diode (LED) arrays are widely used in many devices or equipment, such as light source of a printer or a scanner. In addition, various types of LED array displays are developed and used on numerous occasions, including traffic signs, and outdoor commercial display. The conventional control system for LED lighting system uses a DMX-512 interface, which is a standard protocol the lighting control desks use to communicate with the lighting equipment. The DMX-512 protocol is widely used in theater and stage lighting. However, DMX-512 imposes severe application restrictions. For example, DMX-512 is defined as an unreliable data transmission system; therefore, it must not be used with a system that may trigger any forms of error correction, such as pyrotechnics.
Various digital control systems are developed for LED lighting systems. For example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 2005/0,007,038 disclosed a digital lighting system controller with video input capacity, which can be used with standard DMX-512 interface and regularly or irregularly arranged lighting system without pre-defined addresses.